Hey Mom! 🐾 Just helped chase away some gloom and brought back wagging tails in the park today. Made some new friends, dug a couple of holes, and even found a bone to share! It’s a dog’s life, and I’m loving every moment. See you soon! 🐶💌

Love, your Itty Bitty Monkey (Angel) 🐾

It all happened one fateful evening when dusk draped its purple flannel over Pawsburg, and I found myself in a bit of a pickle. You see, being Angel, a gray pit bull of rather sterling reputation and particularly, might I add, commendable obduracy, it threw a conundrum of the highest order my way.

Unbeknownst to me, in the still hours of human dreaming, whispers of a most scandalous event spread like wildfire across Spaniel Springs. It was none other than a missing stash of Hound’s Hotdogs, and, quite shockingly, the pork swindler was said to have gray fur with white on the chest—an uncanny description of yours truly.

The sheer notion that I, Angel, would abscond with a cache of comestibles without inviting my sisters Taz and Bristol, or even my faithful confidant Jack, was utterly preposterous. Nevertheless, the gossiping quadrupeds had pointed their noses in my direction. Thus, to Labrador Lunch Shelter I was wrongly escorted, under the stern watch of Overseer Barkingham—a Basset Hound with suspiciously droopy eyes and entirely too much time on his paws.

I brooded over my so-called predicament, aimlessly pawing at the kennel straw. Oh, if only they knew it was solely out of tremendous affection that I had shared my watermelon rations with Bear the Shih Tzu and Jasper the Pug, and not out of traitorous intrigue.

I resolved that the only course of action was to break free, with the grace and flair befitting my well-earned moniker, “Itty Bitty.” The opportunity presented itself in the form of rough-housing with an innocent yet quite robust contraption called a ball. Such activities are not foreign, given my fondness for fetching and tug-of-war, but who would have thought torture devices could serve as a liberating instrument!

With precise maneuvering and perhaps a dash of luck, I nudged and rolled the ball to Barkingham’s feet, catching him unawares, and took flight with the velocity of a shepherd’s whistle. I bounded past Quartz Qimmiq Quarter, evoking gasps and wagging tails, yet I kept on, ears straight as arrows, loving the breeze of the chase.

My next stop required deftness and cunning; not exactly a pit bull’s strong suit among the bravest of canine kind but a place Happy Tails Tailoring could offer—a quick disguise! Tucked in the back where piles of suits and hats lay abandoned from last week’s Terrier Tea, I donned a delightful tartan scarf and a monocle.

Now as Officer McBarker, I sauntered the bustling lanes, cleverly acting the part of an investigative type, now unnecessary but useful. I sidled over to Husky’s Hotcakes, where a throng of dachshunds, spaniels, and poodles (professional gossipmongers, these breeds) gathered.

“So about those Hotdogs, there’s more to this tale, isn’t there?” I inquired with what I hoped was a note of enigmatic authority. It wasn’t long before the truth unraveled—the sausages had not walked off by themselves, nor kidnapped by the Pit Bull Detective (fiction they conspired against me was). Instead, they were secretly devoured by none other than Chester the Lab retriever at Labrador Lunch Shelter—a majestic mishap tied to his meditation practices gone awry involving unsupervised binging.

With justice served neat, I strolled back home, toward my mother’s warm embrace, and snuggled under the blanket right where I had begun this little misadventure. As sleep clouded my senses, I pondered mischievously if I could indeed live up to the moniker Monkey—a name for pulling off a caper that left Pawsburg’s tongues wagging till the fortnight.